The present invention relates in general to a clamp for holding an article and more particularly to a medical clamp for holding a tube to a patient's body.
It is often necessary to clamp external and mesentery tubes to a medical patient's body, for example, feeding tubes, naso-gastric tubes, chest tubes, foley catheter as well as condom catheter tubes, dialysis tubes, angiocath and heparin lock set tubes, as well as other tubes used to introduce fluids into the body intravaneously or to introduce oxygen into the mouth or nose of a patient.
It is important that a tube clamp holds the tube firmly because movement of the tubes may cause discomfort to the patient. It is often necessary to remove the tube and replace it with another or to adjust the position of the tube. Therefore, it is desirable that the clamp be releasable so that the tube may be unclamped and reclamped without removing or replacing the entire clamp structure.
U.S. Pat. No. 3,826,254 discloses a clamp comprising an adhesive pad which folds back over itself to adhere a tube.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,165,748 discloses a tube clamp formed in one piece and adherable to a patient's body and having a center portion which folds around and clamps the tube by adhering to itself.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,333,468 discloses a clamp having a base having two raised portions to form between them a transverse groove. A tube is accepted to lie in the groove and a flap permanently affixed to the base at one end is extendable over the tube. Pressure sensitive adhesive covers the raised portions and the groove of the base as well as the flap underside. The flap is pressed onto the raised portions and the tube to adhere and clamp the tube in the groove.
Each of the foregoing clamps suffers the disadvantage that slight rotation or translation of the tube tends to break the adhesive bond. Thus secure holding of the tube is not effected.
U.S. Pat. No. 3,834,380 discloses a clamp including a slit tube which receives a rod-like article and is closed and kept closed by a flap attached to the tube at one end and secured at the other end. The tube is flexible and may be resilient. This device is unduly bulky and may cause discomfort to the patient and tends to lift the clamp tape off of the patient which causes further discomfort. Moreover, this device is insufficiently flexible for use in areas of the body where movement is likely and flexibility is desired. Such areas include the head and joint areas. This inflexibility may result in a tube being held in a wrong position. Moreover, this device depends on friction for holding a tube, and is therefore dependent upon the surface properties of the article or tube to be held to effect such a friction bond. If the surface of the article to be held is "slippery" relative to the material of the slit tube, the holding effect will be poor. A further disadvantage of this device is that only a small range of sizes of tubes may be held for a given slit tube size.